Brexit: We can't let the dominos fall

Remember the date 24th May 2016 - the day the old European political order died in a truly tragicomic fashion . Mr. Cameron's nonsensical gamble has taken the world from the post-911 era to the even scarier post-Brexit reality. There is no doubt in my mind that 24.06.2016 will be mentioned in history books as the start of the biggest political upheaval since the end of World War II. And while it's impossible to predict what the future holds, I am more than certain that the operative word to describe the next few years will be "anger". It is after all disillusionment and anger that put the entire European project in jeopardy. Incidentally, my youthful peers' reaction to Brexit has been characterised by a very similar sense of disillusionment and helpless anger.

When trying to predict the future, one always has to be mindful of the past. The youth of Europe seems to be perceiving Brexit in terms of loss of convenience or opportunity. And while these concerns are perfectly valid, it scares me how few of us talk about the similarities between what is going on in Europe now to the hatred epidemic that consumed the continent in the 20s and 30s of the last century. We like to think about European history in terms of heroes and villains. Nazis were the evil mastermind that were stopped by the brave coalition of democracy and good, right? The problem is that the actual history is a bit more complicated than that. The Treaty of Versailles was effectively a disastrous political decision that pushed much of the Old Continent towards full-on economic depression. The scariest element of Brexit and its many unknown knock-on effects is that even the angriest of the youth seem to be missing the horrific similarities. European unity is not something we can take for granted, especially when it is endangered by a movement that has scapegoating of particular ethnic minorities embedded in its DNA.

Not underestimating the anger and frustration of the downtrodden is however only part of the solution. The so-called millennial generation has to find a way to utilise its own anger and frustrations into something productive. We happen to live in the age of the 24 hour news cycle where stories come and go, where even the most horrific event is shoved to the side and forgotten. Instead of just criticizing the effects of the Leave movement, the youth has to mobilise and provide a strong ideological narrative to what I would call Trump Populism. We are always quick to criticise when radical right populists score a victory but we fail to provide a viable alternative. We are so used to our freedoms that when something poses a tangible threat to our values all we do is mock. The "bad guys" are winning because they are fully committed to their cause. They live and breathe the nonsensical ideas that they preach. The millennials need to respond with the same kind of commitment because, quite frankly, we are losing the battle for what makes Europe a special place - the vibrant multiculturalism and diversity.

Finally, we cannot let ourselves to think about problems like Brexit locally. The greatest tragedy of the decision made by the Britons 2 days ago is that a local vote will undoubtedly change lives for millions around the continent and the world. The dominos have started to fall and can be stopped only by the way of active resistance.  Brexit combined with the unsolved Greek economic crisis is more than enough to topple our continent's entire economy. David Cameron's silly internal struggles with his own backbenchers have morphed into a behemoth that will likely affect the lives of the average European as much as an average Brit. This is why it's time to grow up and say: a global economy cannot be run by hundreds of disjointed local entities. The need for real European federalism has never been that clear. We simply cannot keep allowing the whims of politicians to destabilize entire countries. Whether we like it or not we live in a globalized world. Nationalism is an outdated political doctrine that has to be at least updated for the needs of today. Brexit is a great example of how trying to have the cake and eat it too ends up.

To me personally, Brexit is the last wake-up call the Western society is going to get. The inclusive world of today is not a given and can be taken away from us at any time. We, the progressive youth, have to be ready to defend what we hold dear. The young Brits woke up 2 days ago having realised their opportunities have been dramatically curtailed. As much as it is convenient to think that you're safe from such changes, remember that this is exactly what the Brits thought until May 24th. Today - more than ever - it is important to remember that "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

Doom Review - The Painkiller Sequel We've All Been Waiting For

*Copy purchased on release
Version reviewed - PC
Price: 60 USD / 60 EUR

Nostalgia is a powerful force in the world of video games. Every year we witness more and more franchises of the old being rebooted or reimagined. To understand this particular trend we need to look no further than the ballooning costs of AAA game development. However, while being economically driven, this trend gave birth to a number of excellent titles that contributed to our medium in some truly great ways. Franchises like  Tomb Raider or Wolfenstein reached new creative heights in their respective reboots.    Ever since Bethesda announced that Doom would be getting a reboot it was clear that doing the historic franchise justice would be no easy task.


The secretive nature of the development process didn't really fill the fans with a lot of confidence. Up until April we were given little substantive footage of the id Software's newest creation.The disappointing multiplayer beta only fueled the aura of uncertainty. When it was announced that there will be no review copies provided to the press some of the fans were quick to bury the title even before the full release. This is why it is with a mixture of sheer joy and legitimate surprise that I can say: Doom 2016 is quite good! It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and it will not satisfy everyone. However, considering the burden of expectations placed on the developer prior to the release, Doom is gleefully unapologetic in how fun it is.

The first thing that will surprise many is how quickly you are violently thrown into action. You will shoot your first baddies literally 10 seconds after the game starts. There's no pretense of storytelling, no explanation, no fluff. You are a pissed off space marine and you're here to kick some serious ass. The little story that is there can be summarized in one sentence: legions of hell are invading our realm and you are humanity's only hope There's certainly a sense of poetic simplicity to how silly the whole ordeal is. The main villain is so over-the-top demonic that I actually burst into laughter seeing her at a certain stage of the game. As cheesy as the minimalist storytelling is, the world created by the developers is just perfect for the kind of game they were going for. The main theme here is that heavy-metal-driven anger that couldn't be any more 90s if they tried. The soundtrack only helps to reinforce the retro feel of the game. The mixture of heavy metal and Quake-inspired electronic music might not be the most memorable but is yet another little element that helps the awe-inspiring tone of the game.

As much as I enjoyed my time interacting with this hell on Mars, it is the gameplay that really took the game to new heights. The dynamism of the gunplay is what occasionally makes Doom a  truly mesmerizing experience. Mowing down thousands of baddies hasn't felt that good since the masterpiece that was Painkiller. In many ways the new Doom is a direct spiritual successor of the People Can Fly cult classic - a compliment I wasn't prepared to give to either Hard Reset or the Shadow Warrior reboot. The great feel of the gameplay can be attributed to a few simple design principles. First of all,  Doomguy's default running speed is almost extreme by today's standards. The game is great at encouraging you to always be on the move. To stay alive you are required to engage in what I call "headless chicken" tactics. The sense of motion you get from dodging enemies only adds to the insane power fantasy that is the new Doom. The crazy pace of the game is only amplified by a parkour-inspired traversal system that makes a surprising amount of sense in this adrenaline-fueled universe.

 Another important aspect of the title that definetely has to be praised is how impactful the gunplay feels. And sure, you might think that this is no big deal since it's id Software and id knows how to make good shooters. What makes Doom unique though is how the developers made sure you are always aware of the actual impact your bullets are having on the enemy. Damage animations are unlike anything else you have ever seen. Every time you get up close and personal to a hell spawn you are immediately aware of how devastating your blows are. In fact, the very controversial glory kill mechanic is designed specifically to make you appreciate the visceral detail that was created to immerse you in this fascinating world. And don't worry, the glory kill thing does not outstay its welcome ; by the time mid-game kicks in for good  you will have to use versatile tactics in order to survive. Difficulty scaling is another praise-worthy aspect of the game. Unlike many other AAA titles these days, the default difficulty level is a welcome but fair challenge that many will appreciate.

Despite all the great qualities Doom is certainly far from a perfect title. The overall pacing of the single player campaign is a bit broken. The first 2 hours of it can only be described as subdued. It takes more than a while before the game starts throwing all the more interesting weaponry at you. Mid-game is where the game truly gets to shine but even here the action is a bit unevenly distributed . The game insists on revealing the vast majority of new enemy types in the middle of the game. Apart from the boss battles there are hardly any surprises in the late game. The boss battles itself feel a bit crammed together. You will not encounter your first boss in the first 8 to 10 hours of gameplay. Instead, most levels end in fun but bog-standard arena-type events. The superb gameplay holds the experience up throughout all of these missteps but there is no question that the whole thing feels a bit messy.  

If you are looking for a truly innovative title that introduces a lot of new ideas this might not be the game for you. Apart from the addition of the parkour mechanic and proper vertical traversal the id Software creation seems to be heavily reliant on the Painkiller formula with some old Doom concepts mixed in. If you are a retro shooter connoisseur you will quickly realize that  a lot of the "new" ideas could be considered derivative in some places. This is painfully apparent when you examine the gun line-up of the game. Out of all the weapons and mods in your arsenal there are clearly 3 or 4 options that are optimal at all times while also being the most fun. And of course, this has plagued many shooters for years. Still, personally I would have appreciated if the game found a way to encourage more weapon switching.

Whether all that bothers you or not is up to personal sensibilities. However, it is clear that the 2016 version is nowhere near the game-changer that revolutionized the industry in the 90s.  The reality of the situation is that we as an industry have moved on from the many contributions of the original Doom and expecting the new sequel to be anywhere as important is a bit unreasonable.  The new game is a fun shooter that doesn't take itself too seriously. It is a respectful homage to the original with enough of good concepts to recommend it to most fans of the FPS genre. Considering how much of a difficult project Doom must have been, the end result is rather impressive. What I will say with full confidence is that id Software is back in top form and I can't wait for what the future holds for franchises like Doom or Quake.

 Final Verdict:  8/10 - Exceeding all expectations

 P.S.: The multiplayer is.... I guess OK would be the perfect word for it. I don't usually do a lot of competitive multiplayer but I can imagine that high level play is not something that this would allow with all its Be the Demon silliness.

Youtube experiments and general news

This short piece is more of a general update than anything else. This week I was finally able to complete my PC setup. I finally found a microphone that normalizes my sexy speech impediment. I also continued familiarizing myself with my new PC. In the next few weeks you can expect me venture in a number of new experimental directions.

First of all, I recently opened a Youtube channel for Crippled Gaming. So far It's just a DS3 boss reel but I'm working on coming up with a video companion format for my written articles. Of course, the written content will remain the biggest priority for me. My voice is not appealing enough to realistically have big Youtube ambitions. However, I think adding a bit of other media to support the articles will ultimately make them more digestible for quite a few people. Feel free to provide me with feedback on all the different things that I'm trying out.

Obviously, the Twitch channel will also feature higher quality content as the result of all the upgrades above.  The technical goals for the near feature will revolve around incremental improvements to my video editing skills as well as figuring out a more interesting format for the Twitch broadcasts. Again, feedback on all of that is more than welcome.

Thank you for the support thus far. I'm looking forward to providing more high quality editorial content and figuring out new ways to make Crippled Gaming  truly unique and compelling.

The Crippled Gaming Rig key specs:
GPU: 2x GTX Titan X
CPU: Intel i7 5960x
RAM: 32 GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 512 GB SSD/4 TB mechanical

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UncleBartek
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/unclebartek
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZarHhf96-IlBbKJ2_TioAQ
E-mail: bartek@crippledcaming.com

Indie games and difficulty - it's time to reconsider the old principles

I spent the last week on a variety of cool gaming-related activities, most of them being Dark Souls 3 or anything Souls-adjacent. In my DS downtime I decided to give two very different indie titles a go. The first one was the groundbreaking Super Meat Boy that opened a lot of doors for indie developers couple of years back. My second pick was a direct beneficiary of these open doors; the wildly popular Enter the Gungeon. Both games are fairly unique but, at the same time, they also encapsulate the kind of gameplay that Western indie devs are known for. Both games focus on a seemingly endless variety of new challenges and levels that are driven by a punishing difficulty level. I obviously turned out to be terrible at both Gungeon and Meat Boy and I wasn't in the least surprised by that. Over the last 7 years the term "indie" has become a shorthand for extreme difficulty in game most of us just accepted that as an integral element of independent games.

I personally find it very odd that, despite the incredible growth of the indie space, we never really even considered why many smaller developers build their products around the idea of a very formidable challenge. While analyzing this phenomenon we first have to understand the origins of it. In the early days of the indie movement sales of smaller games were driven primarily by Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. The was XBLA was marketed focused on a "By Gamers, for Gamers" notion that generated a lot of grassroots support for the program among the core gaming community. I would argue that it was this very concept of gamer legitimacy that first inspired indie developers to make their games hard.  Getting the support of enthusiast gamers was quite obviously key to creating what turned out to be an entire new subset of the gaming industry. Difficulty was initially used to show the indie devs' commitment to cater to core gamers, as well as a homage to games of old. Over the years the indie game as an entity came to be known as a very tricky animal indeed. The problem with this assertion is that indie gaming is in a completely different place in 2016 and what made sense several years ago might actually be holding developers back.

Challenge has always been a central component of most video games. A lot of us play games to get the wonderful feeling of validation you get from overcoming the odds and achieving something.  When games use difficulty to entice the player the results can be very compelling. Super Meat Boy is definitely a superb example of how to use difficulty to convey the ambiance the developers want to create. In Team Meat's 2011 creation you are faced with a ton of bite-size levels that require the player to perform different tiny feats of dexterity. The game is played at a crazy pace that keeps you immersed at all times, no matter the magnitude of your failures. The fail state is so brief of a moment that the player's brain doesn't even have time to properly register what transpired. This is why Meat Boy also incorporates a unique replay mechanic that shows all your different failures alongside the one successful attempt, all on one insane replay screen. Most of all, Super Meat Boy does not gate significant content and mechanics behind a difficulty wall. You are given all the tools from the get-go and your progress simply unlocks more of the very same addictive gameplay. This is why I consider the meaty indie classic to be a shining example of how indie devs should implement difficulty into their creations.

Unfortunately, a lot of smaller developers are struggling to discern when difficulty is truly indispensable to what they are trying to create and when it is merely a feature of their product. Let us take Enter the Gungeon as our test case, even though it has to be pointed out that nearly every game in the rogue-lite genre is guilty of the very same. In Enter the Gungeon you are tasked with fighting your way through a gun-themed dungeon using a wide variety of weapons. What makes the game great is the extremely creative theme and the endless supply of cool guns. Unfortunately, the game is also a very difficult experience that ,in all likelihood, may prove to be too difficult for quite many gamers. The lack of adjustable difficulty in Gungeon is a prime example of the unnecessary insistence on making indie titles hard. What pains me is the fact that including adjustable difficulty in a game like Enter the Gungeon would not make a difference to core players that enjoy the difficulty and, at the same time, it would certainly help to get the full experience for those of us not equipped with flexible fingers.

In the last few years, thanks to the rise of the indies, we have experienced a diverse spectrum of amazing games that would've never seen the light of day otherwise. While I'm certainly thankful for that I'm also a bit disappointed that many developers still feel they have an obligation to make their games universally difficult. Modern indie titles are much more than ultra-difficult retro gimmicks. Making them accessible to as many players as possible should always be a priority. Obviously, accessibility should never interfere with artistic integrity of the dev. We have to remember that some games use difficulty to convey complex messages or evoke specific feelings in the player. I myself argued not so long ago that the inclusion of an easy mode in Dark Souls would interfere with what the game is at its core. Ultimately though, most games are not the From Software masterpiece and the difficulty is most often an ancillary  feature that is just a small part of a much greater design. The obligation to keep all indie games rock hard is a relic of the early years of indie gaming. As we're seeing more and more indie titles enter the mainstream, the expectations put on these games change. Maintaining their legitimacy while opening up to new customers will certainly a challenge. Luckily, independent developers are a rather creative lot.

The future of PC gaming - What will it take to retire the console culture?

Last week was a pretty special time in my gaming life. After investing the vast majority of my life's savings I became a proud owner of a high-end Alienware PC. My shiny Area 51 PC arrived here on Wednesday afternoon in all its' mind-blowing glory.Getting to run video games on a high refresh rate monitor is an almost religious life-changing experience. I had my doubts of whether the difference is that significant but, having tried it out for myself, I now see the error of my heathen ways; high-end PC gaming is the real deal. Running games on Titan X actually gives you an edge in some games. To my surprise, I discovered that I'm actually better at games now that everything runs in 60 or more frames.  This truly seems like it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

At the same time, starting my foray into the world of high-end PC gaming  has made me acutely aware of one myth I had believed in myself. A part of me had hoped that buying a high-end PC would bring an end to the endless tinkering that every PC gamer is very familiar with. We've all done it, you buy a new game that your computer should not have any issues running and yet something goes horribly wrong. After hours of investigative work on the internet you identify the culprit and conquer the shortcomings of your hardware. A part of me loves this process and solving a compatibility problem can sometimes even be as satisfying as eventually beating the game you're trying to run. Still, at least a fraction of my purchasing decision-making was driven by the faint hope that it would limit my tinkering and experimentation time.

My first week with Alienware has been a lot of great things but I certainly wouldn't call it problem-free by any stretch of imagination. I learned the hard way that SLI (having two graphics cards running in one PC) is a much a blessing as it is a curse. I also realized that, contrary to what that infamous Ubisoft exec stated in 2014, horsepower doesn't really matter if a game is not well optimized. Lastly, I even experienced a glorious game freeze despite my computer dominating the recommended specs. And it was exactly at that moment  that I thought to myself: "If I didn't like solving puzzles, this would have been frustrating as hell".

Why is it exactly that it's 2016 and the quality of the PC gaming experience is as hit-and-miss as it was when the PS1 dethroned the desktop computers in the 90s ? When everything comes together PC gaming is the most rewarding way to experience new games.  However, time and time again we, the consumers, are expected to troubleshoot the products we pay good money for. On one hand publishers are reassuring us how much they value the PC platform but on the other hand even the father of personal computing, Microsoft, can't get one bloody Xbox One port right. When considering this issue we often shrug and blindly accept that PC gaming is at times an extreme sport for only the true enthusiasts. I keep reading that the publishers are aware of the impending end of the console culture. Yet, the same publishers often expect every PC user to be proficient at dealing with the problems created by their own software.

Before we say goodbye to the consoles we first have to solve the ease-of-access question. I find it baffling to say the least that no real concerted efforts have been made to standardize the PC gaming experience for gamers that would love to move on to the PC but are afraid of the extra time commitment gaming on a PC seems to require. A part of ey understands that optimization for the PC is hard. What I can't  comprehend though is the fact that no one is even trying to apply the same standardized best practices found in console gaming to the growing PC market.Valve seems to be the only significant player trying to solve this problem by trying to unify the PC hardware. At the end of the day even they simply lack the conviction in rolling out their Steam Machines. Most importantly, no one seems to have the courage simply come out and guarantee seamless support for a game on even the most robust machines on the market. Instead of embracing or even trying to mimic the plug-and-play mentality that popularized consoles in the 90s, most publishers seem to be reinforcing the anti-consumer "cautiously wait and see" approach that is scaring many people off. Microsoft is a particularly blatant offender here. I keep hearing the same tired phrase being used everywhere: "Your mileage may vary". Instead of creating a line of Xbox gaming computers that promise superior optimization, their novel gaming strategy focuses on creating an impenetrable Apple-like ecosystem with the abysmally implemented Universal Windows Platform.

In short, not providing a standardized gaming experience on the PC platform is a huge missed opportunity that is preventing a lot of people from abandoning consoles for good. The fact that there is not a single PC that can  officially guarantee problem-free gaming across the board is a travesty in itself, especially when we consider how powerful our desktops are getting these days. PC gaming is in some ways the clearly better experience but staying on a console is still a very rational gaming choice for millions of people. Having experienced how fun PC gaming can be at the best of times, I find it really infuriating that in some ways it can still be incredibly obtuse and inaccessible to many. Technology has accelerated to the point where the console model of video game distribution is simply not feasible anymore. It is the PC market's responsibility to open up and welcome the console players with comparable functionality. The fact that such functionality isn't already in place is a little bit of a disgrace in my humble opinion. After all, experiencing the joys of high frame rate gaming should be a viable option for every gamer.

P.S: Just to clarify, I know that I paid 20% extra basically for the Alienware mascot on my rig :P As much as it pains me to be so wasteful I am disabled and I really couldn't find a reasonable pre-made alternative in Sweden that included good accidental damage coverage :P Of course, that doesn't mean I don't love rubbing it in that I HAVE AN ALIENWARE NOW :P However,  please  be aware that me being a douche was not the only reason for this decision :)

Forced Showdown review - The smoothie of sweet masochism

*Copy purchased on release
Builds Tested: PC 41.0
Price: 20 USD / 20 EUR

Couple of days ago I was making the usual rounds on my favorite Youtube channels and I came across something that looked way more engrossing than either Hyperlight Drifter or Enter the Gungeon - two games that have dominated press coverage this week. When I looked at the first minute of a let's play and I said to myself: "someone is ripping off the Warcraft universe aesthetic" . Couple of moments later, when Idiotech started explaining what it actually was, I wondered to myself: "is it a Hand of Fate clone?". As it turns out Forced Showdown is neither. It is actually the sequel to the largely unknown 2013 title "Forced" that combines the elements of literally every major genre. Don't believe what people say about this game; it is far from a  simple twin-stick rogue-lite and CCG hybrid. It's a game that does a lot of things amazingly well while also inexplicably failing at others. I have enough strong opinions on the game to write both a glowing 10/10 review as well as an angry 3/10 one. However, this is anything but a title that we should be indifferent to and sadly enough that's exactly what the sales numbers seem to be indicating.

So what is this sexy Frankenstein's monster exactly? It is a game with a rather straight-forward central conceit. You are a contestant in a type of cosmic Hunger Games. Every run starts with you entering a televised tournament that consists of beating  5 levels that in themselves are divided into 7 regular stages and a final boss stage.You will eventually - after some unlocks - have 4 champions and 3 companions to choose from. Your champion is equipped with 3 unique skills that can be upgraded and augmented. Basically the core gameplay loop consists of you trying to beat 3 major tournaments in the action RPG mode while upgrading your character and your power-ups in between the levels as well as slowly chipping away at the permanent progression elements that give you different bonuses and power-ups.

The combat scenarios are procedurally generated and randomized by a bunch of interesting positive and negative modifiers that always keep them very fresh and enjoyable. In a way, It could be described as a much more polished version of the action encounters found in Hand of Fate with a lot more customability. The card collection element is another aspect of the game seemingly reminiscent of Hand of Fate. Be that as it may, the card collection mechanic is not actually a card collection system but an intricate power-up system with a Hearthstone-like theme. Basically, before every run you choose a deck of 30 cards. Throughout the level you keep drawing cards that can only be activated with mana. Every stage you are given progressively more mana, which in turn allows you to use stronger cards. Unused Mana points are discarded upon starting a stage - you use them or lose them. This makes for some amazing tense situational mana management decisions where you are really required to figure out optimal card synergies. Imagine the amazing variety of a game like the Binding of Isaac with a very interesting balancing twist. And while Isaac will let you breeze through the run if the RNG gods are on your side, Showdown resets the power-ups after every level i.e 5 times in every run.

In short, the core gameplay loop is just damn good. The combat feels amazing and requires you to truly master your skills to really strive to be effective. And being effective is a must since the game is really difficult. Not being aware of your skills and how you've upgraded them will definitely result in a painful death. Every type of enemy requires different positioning and cooldown management. Fighting bosses requires a high degree of pattern recognition and the boss design itself is a sight to behold. With time you will start realizing what your preferred play style is and the power-ups in your deck will all merge into a complex game plan that you can customize to an insane degree. Every action RPG combat connoisseur will most likely appreciate Forced Showdown as it is, in some ways, the second best action combat system I have experienced in the last 5 years. Losing out to only Dark Souls is really nothing to be ashamed of.

 At the same time it has to be said that the game is extremely iterative. Personally, I think that's actually not too bad since it's all put together in a really neat and cohesive way. However, the game certainly wears its inspirations on its sleeve. The aesthetic couldn't possibly be more Blizzard-adjacent even if they tried. The card art design is clearly inspired by Hearthstone to an almost worrying degree. The quirky sense of humor is extremely silly and reminds me of games like Borderlands. I didn't mind it but the boss taunting certainly goes over-the-top with the entire "haha, it's a TV show" theme. At the same time, you can clearly feel that a lot of love has been put into combining all these different elements into something that plays really damn well.

That's why it's a shame that this fascinating experience really lacks polish in so many unnecessary places. If you're a stickler for detail you will most definitely get frustrated with this game. For example, you start it up and jump into a fairly regular tutorial. For some inexplicable reason you can actually fail the tutorial. I ended up having to redo the tutorial 4 times after failing the boss stage. That unfortunately meant going through all the instructional prompts each time. That's ultimately the theme of the entire experience. It's a great game bogged down by some very questionable design decisions. The lack of difficulty options feels like a big missed opportunity since the game can get extremely difficult with some bad RNG and each run feels like a much bigger time investment than something like Isaac. Besides, this is no Dark Souls, the difficulty is just a feature without a narrative reason for adjusting the difficulty of the single player experience.

 The permanent progression system is handled by a slot machine mechanic that arbitrarily gives you random cards based on a dice roll which makes the strategic element of deck-building really hard to control for the first 3-4 hours of gameplay. The most egregious of all the weird design decisions is placing all but one champion behind an achievement gate.  By the time you unlock the other champions, the odds are you will already be proficient with the default Paladin class. The game really fails at encouraging the player to experiment with the other champions. Besides, it might be just me but the paladin clearly feels like the strongest and most accessible class.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the technical problems of the game. I tested the game on both my brand new Titan X Alienware and an older rig with AMD R9 270x. A game that just looks OK should not really be struggling to maintain 30 FPS on Medium. I'm the kind of person who can overlook the 30 FPS lock if it's consistent and stable, which is sadly not the case here. Forced Showdown is certainly a game that should not run the way it does. Also, do not try to Alt Tab while playing on older rigs, you might get a punishing FPS drop upon return. As for the high-end, The Titan X runs the game at around 80 to 90 FPS. Not getting 120 is certainly a very peculiar thing. And for god's sake dear devs, speed up the Destiny-like controller cursor for the menus; I can literally feel my beard growing while operating the bloody thing!

Forced Showdown is a very good game that was perhaps taken out of the oven a bit prematurely. The core gameplay loop, though, is one of the most satisfying action RPG experiences out there. It is iterative in the best possible way; it distills the best aspects of its many inspirations. It definitely is a game that expects you to "git gud" which of course might put you off. At the same time, it is an experience that really makes failing fun. After 15 hours of gameplay I'm still stuck on the final boss of the first tournament.   Yet, going for just one more run has never felt so fresh and exciting. The number of cool combat scenarios is mind-boggling.  It certainly scratched my rogue-lite itch in a way that I have never experienced before.  And that alone warrants a strong recommendation.

Final Verdict:  7.5/10 - Great but flawed

Why Dark Souls' notorious difficulty is largely a myth

If video games were gangsters, the Souls series would definitely be regarded to have the most street cred. It's often considered to be the last truly challenging AAA series left in the market. It is also the series with a very passionate fan base known for working together towards peeling off all the layers of the many secrets hidden in the Souls universe.  And despite the series being truly remarkable in many aspects, the perceived insane difficulty of the games remains the most recognizable quality of From Software's creation. The thing is, I've played all the (currently released in the West!) entries of the series except Demon's Souls and I've come to the conclusion that people making generalizations about the difficulty is often a bit misleading. Ultimately, I feel at times that many potential players are discouraged from giving DS a fighting chance based on a rather simplistic way of looking at the games. Since DS III is upon us and I want every game-loving human being to take part in this glorious experience, let's debunk ourselves some myths.

Let me start off by saying that I'm not a gaming ninja secretly bragging about my "hardcore" gaming skills. While I am an avid gamer I also happen to be a disabled gamer. My right hand's flexibility and strength could be compared to this of a 3 years old baby ,one or two years away from mastering proper fine motor skills. What this means in practice is that I'm slow on the right trigger and kind of inaccurate with the right analog stick. Admittedly, this makes games with the traditional Third-Person Perspective less of a problem than FPS'es, for example. At the end of the day, however, I simply cannot consider myself more than an average gamer in terms of my  overall skill. Yet,  The Dark Souls series never seemed to be an impossible challenge. Generally speaking, I might get stuck on a boss for 2 or 3 hours of gameplay but I always prevail one way or another.

My secret to being decent at Dark Souls is that I never bought into the entire "Prepare to Die" marketing slogan. Do I think the Souls games are easy? God no!  Deaths are obviously plentiful in Dark Souls and Yours Truly probably struggles a bit more than your average  hollow warrior. What makes Dark Souls unique is that it's that the path to victory is always clear and attainable, while your mistakes feel minuscule and completely avoidable.  The Souls series' true greatness lies in the ability to always tease you with the prospect of victory at your fingertips. Upon finally beating a difficult boss you are regularly filled with the peculiar realization that the challenge was in fact quite easy and the only obstacle that impeded progress was your own inadequacy.

From Software's sublime game design strategy makes a point to reward methodical play as opposed to demanding pure skill. None of the core mechanics demand physical dexterity; they simply demand patience. The Souls games teach you to take that extra breath between your moves. The players are encouraged to think analytically and think about a difficult encounter in the same way one tends to strategize during a chess game. When you start seeing the game for what it really is, the experience becomes akin to learning a language. You're progressively becoming more "fluent" and what seemed completely foreign to your brain not so long ago suddenly starts making perfect sense. And, as with learning languages, your willingness to power through the initial overwhelming stage is much more important than skill alone.

The moments when a scary boss fight suddenly starts making sense in your head is where Dark Souls games truly shine. I can hardly think of anything more satisfying in modern gaming. Incidentally, this is why I would actually be against introducing an easy mode into Dark Souls.  Adjustable difficulty makes sense for almost all games and the fact that there is backlash against the invulnerable mode in Star Fox Zero is simply ridiculous. As a disabled gamer I know full well that games should always strive to be more accessible. Dark Souls, however, is my only exception to this rule.

The requirement to be methodical in your approach radiates from every element of From Software's design. The game banks on you being analytical and ready to problem-solve. The way Dark Souls games build immersion is inherently tied to your commitment to the game. Introducing an easy mode would give players an option to effectively break the game. We wouldn't be OK with that if it was a game-breaking technical bug and we shouldn't OK with that in terms of breaking the game's internal logic. The developer takes full responsibility for the experience they deliver and a challenge-less Dark Souls is simply not a Souls experience. At the same time, I'm all for a user-created offline easy mod. The customer always have the right to break the game at his or her own risk.

Dark Souls is still not an experience for everyone. While being a lot more accessible than many people assume, the game still requires a fair bit of finger dexterity and might be too much for some gamers. Also, If patience is really not your forte, DS might not be the perfect fit. Despite all this, I really believe that Dark Souls is one of these essential gaming experiences people should have on their bucket lists. Don't let the "Prepare to Die" mantra discourage you, you should definitely  try it out. Dark Souls wants you to develop a reciprocal relationship with it; the more you'll give , the more you'll get in return. If you are ready to commit, Dark Souls won't mind that your skills are sub-par. Every death in DS is a wonderful learning experience that brings you closer to the ultimate goal of conquering the puzzle and slowly unraveling the mystery.  The game teaches you to take a deep breath and slow down in demanding situations. And that lesson, while requiring quite a bit of commitment, may well benefit every one of us in a way that transcends video games.

Crippled World: Off the Grid - Living Blind Without the Internet book review

*the review copy provided by the author free of charge

So I had my Easter break with the family and now it's time to get back to my sweet blogging business. Today I'm introducing something a little bit different. Every once in a while I have an urge to venture away from the world of gaming and pitch in on topics I'm even more clueless about. This is why Crippled Gaming is proud to introduce a spin-off miscellaneous series Crippled World. Don't ask me how often I will write something like this for I truly have no idea. For now we're reviewing a disability-themed book about the societal as well as the personal impact of the internet. Will Crippled World always be tech-related? Maybe, maybe not. For now, it's nothing more than a fun experiment on the side.

Robert Kingett's "Off the Grid" is a book that documents a social experiment that would definitely prove to be too jarring for most millennials. While dramatically quitting Facebook and other attention-seeking boycotts are quite common among our generation, the very idea of disconnecting from the internet completely is in many ways beyond comprehension. In the fall of 2014 Mr. Kingett decided to do just that in order to, at least initially, boycott the US internet carriers trying to hijack net neutrality. What makes it truly brave and remarkable is the fact that the author happens to be legally blind and relies on the internet assisting him in pretty much every aspect of his life. As a result, "Off the Grid" is a fascinating journey into the modern world's dependence on the World Wide Web and how this relates to a young author's personal life.

Let me begin by saying that Mr. Kingett is a stylistically impressive writer. In a world where sentences have become overly long and clunky ,even in many respectable outlets, "Off the Grid" and its style is a breath of fresh air. The prose is delivered in a very clear and concise way , making the book a true joy to follow. The author consistently succeeds at conveying to the reader the inner workings of his unique mind. The writing style reveals to us a passionate young man driven by endless curiosity. In short, "Off the Grid" is simply a very enjoyable and fun read.

So how about the subject matter? The book is an account of Robert's month without the internet. The challenge exposes quite a few hidden truths about the web that not many even consider. The internet has become a ubiquitous utility we all take for granted. Not being online is something beyond people's wildest dreams, at least in the Western world. The first thing that is described by the author upon going offline is not being able to satiate that "itch" for more information.  It is in a way reminiscent of a chain smoker quitting cigarettes cold turkey. Throughout the first part of the book we get to witness the restlessness that a young person feels without internet access. There's a great scene early on where Robert interrupts a conversation to pretend to check his phone just because it's too awkward not to. "Off the Grid" is ultimately a journey filled with these "Aha!" moments that make the reader reconsider their preconceptions about the internet culture at large. This is why I feel that Kingett's message in some ways goes beyond the appeal to people with disabilities.

Independence can certainly be considered the second main theme of the book. The author succeeds at presenting the internet as the great equalizer for disenfranchised groups such as the disabled. Despite the negatives, the internet is still presented as the greatest gift any disabled person could ever ask for. This certainly makes a strong case for universal access to the internet and it being a human right above all. At the end of the experiment, Robert certainly comes to appreciate his time offline but, at the same time, he is giddy to return to the tool that gives him independence. What impressed me the most on the personal level was the author's passionate case for accepting external help when you're disabled  and why this is not at odds with one's personal journey towards independence. A part of me wishes I could make piece with this notion.

This is not to say that "Off the Grid" is a perfect book. One or two chapters are way too informative and don't really inform the narrative in any major way. While reading about the NFB Newsline or the cloud revolution was interesting, I still couldn't help but wonder if some of this fat should've been trimmed when editing the original journal. I also had a similar problem with the gaming chapter. While the existence of online-only games is an interesting problem, talking about it here didn't really fit the tone. Lastly, the cynic in me wonders whether some of the events in the book were a bit embellished. For instance, the beautiful  love story interwoven into the book is almost too perfect for driving the plot. I find it hard to believe that such a wonderful love story coincided perfectly with the experiment. I sense that the timelines might have been adjusted a bit. Overall though, these are all minor gripes that do not take away from my enjoyment of the book.

To conclude, Kingett's "Off the Grid" is a great read that can be recommended to all. While it has some problems, the book ends up being a fascinating deliberation on the impact of the internet on people with and without disabilities. It is also a very interesting personal story with a rather likable protagonist. If you are looking for a well-written treatise on the many problems faced by today's youth, "Off the Grid" is something you should definitely consider.

Final Verdict: Recommended 

Consumer narcissism and game review score inflation - Are we (partly) at fault here?

So yeah, this week I'm going to criticize patterns of behavior I myself engage in. I'm fully aware of the underlying hypocrisy of the following argument. I'm not even sure if I wholeheartedly support the following argument. However, this is something I had that nagging feeling about. At any rate, It is something we as gamers should certainly be talking about. So here goes my crazy theory: The ridiculous degree of review score inflation in the gaming industry is in large part a shortcoming of our own making.

Review score inflation is a fact of life in today's gaming journalism. I could provide you with hundreds outrageous examples but the one that shocked me recently was Mass Effect 3.  I never really played the space fantasy RPG before today. While I was aware of the controversy surrounding the ending, it was quite surprising to realize how many problems that game had. The combat mechanics are woefully archaic, especially when compared to ME3's peers such as Gears of War 3 or Uncharted 3. Furthermore, player customization and the RPG-specific systems are clearly inferior to the standards set  by Mass Effect 2, the game's predecessor. Finally, exploration is as mechanically broken as ever. While the awkward sprinting mechanic was kind of cute in ME1, it's rather embarrasing that Bioware had not fixed it with the third installment of the amazing series. And while it is still a very good game in many respects, it is mired in some significant problems. Yet, the Metacritic average review score for Mass Effect 3 stands at 93, suggesting that it was one of the best video games ever made...

The example above is far from the most outrageous instances of the trend. Every seasoned gamer can name at least a few underwhelming titles that really didn't match up to what was being said about them in the press. When considering this trend, one has to mention the sometimes dubious relationship between the biggest gaming outlets and game publishers. The fact that gamer publishers end up buying the vast majority of ad space on these websites is certainly something to keep in mind. The promotional "merch" that  game journalists are flooded with is also something many journalism professors would frown at. Although all of the above concerns are all legitimate factors, it would be a bit paranoid to blame it all on collusion. As the recent controversy surrounding the Division reviews shows, the underlying reason for review score inflation might be a lot more mundane than we think.

The Division came out to mostly positive critical acclaim. The game was lauded for the mesmerizing depiction of the post-endemic New York City.  And even though the Metacritic score currently stands at around 80 across all platforms, the game garnered several middling reviews. Two most vivid examples of the criticism were Vince Ingenito's IGN US review as well as Jim Sterling's review for the Jimquisition website.  Both gentlemen decided to give the game a seemingly decent score of 6.5. The controversy that followed was mind-blowing. The amount of various insults hurled at Ingenito and Sterling was comparable to the infamous DMC backlash of 2013. And why? Because the journalists posed that the Division was a decent game that did not really excel at anything, while delivering a solid experience nonetheless.

We as a community have a tendency to passionately criticize game journalists for inflating review scores. Seemingly, though, scoring below the general critical consensus is a similar offence.  While researching this piece I came across a fascinating article on the millennial generation that might shed some light on this schizophrenia of unmet expectations (link here). In this article Joel Stein states that "The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that’s now 65 or older". This, he says, is caused by a widespread epidemic of positive reinforcement parenting in the 70s and 80s . Basically, the theory goes, our parents and teachers have programmed us to believe in our own greatness while having little regard for reality. That's why, Stein says, "40% of all millennials believe they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance."

What does that have to do with gaming? Possibly, quite a lot. Gaming has slowly become a passion that people can be proud of. Our community is capable of great things and the games we play can often be considered interactive art. Similarly, we often feel the need to strrongly identify with the games we play. Since we play them a lot, we consider them to be means of our individual expression. Since we are all special and the games we play mean a lot to us, we need them to be great. It's very difficult for many gamers to accept that their favorite game is just decent, or maybe even slightly below average in some ways. Moreover, a game we dislike scoring above our personal judgment also invalidates our uniqueness. This may well be an interesting way of looking at why most games fall into the infinitely spacious scoring bracket between 7.5 and 9.0. In a way, it's a consensus that makes most of us happy.

I know it might be a wild goose chase but awareness that the problem exists is often the first step towards positive change. Maybe it's time to open ourselves to some unsettling radical ideas. From time to time, it's really OK to enjoy a game that's considered mediocre by the press. A true expression of how special you are may well be your ability to appreciate a misunderstood game in all its glory. As for game journalists: Guys, most of us are just being dramatic while coming up with the conspiracy theories. We know you aren't really corrupt. However, It wouldn't hurt to be a little bit bolder. Your audience will only benefit if they are provided with a bitter pill every now and again. Gaming has never been as expansive as it is now. We need you more than ever to be brutally honest with us. We will bitch at you for insulting our favorite franchise the first time around, maybe even the second time around. In the end, however, we will learn to truly appreciate defending our consumer rights, most of us anyway.

2016 is poised to be the year that just might turn us all into FPS players

First person shooters are arguably the most popular type of games ever created. The mixture of engaging combat and exciting spatial exploration is what modern games excel at. And starting with the success of Id Software in the 1990s FPS games have been closely tied to the growth of gaming in terms of market share but also cultural significance. Characters such as Doomguy, Gordon Freeman or ,more recently, Master Chief have become integral parts of the popular culture at large. Franchises like Counter Strike or Call of Duty have dominated global sales charts for more than a decade. In short, there is no gaming concept more Western than the FPS. While the Japanese were mastering their unique RPG aesthetic, the US has given the world the thrills of twitch shooting,

Despite the astounding success of the genre, mainstream FPS title have largely been a market segment designed for the "bro" demographic. Every single element of a game like Call of Duty is designed to appeal to white guys aged 16-35. This unfortunately means that these games remain impenetrable for a large portion of the gaming community. For me personally, the emphasis on pure twitch shooting skills is a huge deal-breaker for most online components of realistic shooters. In short, my shooting reflexes are terrible. This has kept me from being immersed in CoD and Battlefield. I spent years thinking that I was part of a very small minority because my disability renders me incapable of twitch reactions. Funnily enough, a new wave of game devs all over the world have seemingly acknowledged  that my niche concern is a legitimate barrier to entry for quite a few people. Things are changing and I couldn't be more excited.

The game that really made me reconsider my attitude towards shooters was Rainbow Six Siege.  At first glance game looks pretty by-the-numbers, it is essentially set up in the same way as Counter Stroke with some interwoven MOBA-light elements. Because of this exact impression and the online-only aspect the game has received mixed reviews across the board. Contrary to the popular belief, what makes the game truly special is the way the game allows you to contribute to your team's success by being smart rather than just shooting.

Obviously, proficient shooters in Rainbow Six Siege will still end up being the better players, at least in terms of high-level play. However, the game also allows you to contribute to the team effort by mastering your specific ability as well as taking advantage of the environment. Placing a trap in the exact right spot can be as viable as racking up a bunch of headshots. It is essentially the thinking man's shooter that gives you at least 3 distinct methods of expression within the game. You can specialize at: A) Shooting B) Special skill execution or C) Taking advantage of the environment. This is the trinity of good shooter design that is in stark contrast to the shooting-only emphasis of titles like CoD. As a person that never really had this feeling of being essential to your team's success, Rainbow Six Siege is truly a godsend. It is a very inclusive game that only appears to be a regular shooter.

The new unique approach to the FPS genre is also what I loved about the Polish indie gem Superhot. The game's central conceit revolves around a fascinating bullet time mechanic. In Superhot time moves only when you move. You can always take your sweet time to plan out a poetic way to down multiple enemies. It is wonderfully dynamic and very strategic at the same time. It gives you the thrill of being a game action hero without demanding any kind of twitch shooting skills. I feel like the phrase "poetry in motion" was invented specifically to describe my experience in Superhot. And don't trust the let's plays, the game looks kinda boring when you're watching it. Both Rainbow 6 Siege and Superhot might look a bit intimidating, but they both deserve to be played.

On top of that, we have Overwatch and Battleborn, two games that will add to the genre's inclusivity in ,ore interesting ways. I haven't had the pleasure to participate in the Overwatch or Battleborn betas but what I heard about both games is truly promising. In addition to the heavy use of the aforementioned trinity of inclusive FPS design, both games are aesthetically innovative. The character design teams of Blizzard and Gearbox made a point of creating diverse casts of characters that will appeal to gamers from all walks of life. At the moment, Overwatch is really trying to invite new players to learn high-level teamplay. Battleborn will probably make more sense for people looking to engage in more of a casual experience. Whatever ends up happening with both games, the real winners are the previously excluded gamers. Who could've anticipated that two major AAA studios would be putting their money on convincing gaming minorities, such as women, to feel at home playing their FPS titles?

2016 will most likely change our definition of First Person Shooters. Rethinking the very formula and  providing unique mechanics  in games like Siege or Superhot fills me with some much-needed hope for the future. The video game industry has finally acknowledged that twitch shooting skills are not universal. After years of missing out on the fun of multiplayer battles, people with sucky reflexes can finally join the ranks of the FPS crowd. 2016 might just be the year to give these games a shot. Shooters will never be games for everyone and I'm fine with that. But, at the same time, it is a historically significant genre for gaming and making it more accessible and interesting to casual players is indeed a noble endeavor and an exciting trend I can fully get behind.  It's time to give inclusive shooters a chance.

It's time we admit that justifying piracy in 2016 is pure nonsense

Today I spent quite a lot time trying to make some space on my antiquated hard drive. Browsing through all the data I've collected since 2009 turned out to be quite a sentimental journey. What was rather shocking was my realization that I still had lots of pirated software on my PC.  Yes, there was a time when I could've easily been considered an archetype of modern piracy. Like many others, I pirated because I could.  Over the last 6 years I have taken steps to get over my pirating habits and I'm proud to say that it's been almost a year since I last ran a Bittorrent game on my PC. However, even at the apex of my piracy days I was fully aware that what I was doing was a form of petty theft, akin to shoplifting a Mars bar. Trying to claim that what I was doing was morally justifiable had never even crossed my mind. Yet, to this day the internet is filled with people making ridiculous arguments both for and against piracy.

This is exactly what bugs me about the modern piracy debate. The defenders of piracy tend to claim that what they do is a form of politically justified protest in the name of the Open Source ideology. At the same time, companies keep insisting that pirates are scary criminals whose only ambition is to destroy the gaming industry. In no other debate around gaming have both sides ever been so shamefully dishonest and manipulative. I'm writing this because, above all else, we as a community need an injection of honesty into the subject matter.  People pirate because it is a very logical behavior. Piracy enables the consumer to access their favorite games for free while the odds of suffering negative consequences are very low. There's no deeper meaning to it, most modern pirates enjoy not paying for their games much more than the alternative.

Let's start with the poverty fallacy i.e. people not being able to afford games. I have to make a clear distinction here; the   have to remember that there are countries where poverty is the driving force behind piracy. Personally, being poor played a significant role in why I started using pirated software. At the turn of the century Poland wasn't exactly the best place to live in. At that time, my parents juggled a multitude of financial responsibilities related to my disability as well as general costs of living. Getting me a chipped PS2 was literally all we could afford. Because the legal market for video games was minuscule, getting a good deal on a legit game was an impossibility. I'm telling you this to give you a better picture of the game market in developing countries such as Brazil, Russia and China. If the industry does little to adjust to developing markets, I'm fine with piracy filling in the void.

What makes my blood boil is the cynical use of the poverty fallacy in the West. Bittorrent piracy is a predominantly western phenomenon. The reason why it is rather difficult for me to believe in torrent piracy being driven by poverty is the fact that it requires robust internet connection. Last month, when Jonathan Blow spoke out against people downloading the Witness illegally, many pseudo-activists condemned him and stated that this was punishment for the 40 USD price tag. Parts of the gaming community cling on to this misconception that piracy is not generating lost sales, because people wouldn't buy overpriced games in the first place. This might have been true 10 years ago, but certainly not today. The competition in the digital distribution space provides the consumers with abundance of deals and alternative pricing solutions that essentially let you decide what you are willing to pay for a particular game. The only requirement is a bit of patience. So how come did the Witness, a game marketed to English-speaking audiences, rise to the top of Bittorrent charts?

The Witness is a great example of what actually motivates people to pirate a game. One mechanism that is not widely discussed when we talk about piracy is game prioritization. Most serious pirates struggle to justify incessant piracy to themselves on the daily basis. Because of dealing with the moral ambiguities pirates are likely to periodically grant the "privilege"  of getting their money to "worthy" games. At the same time priority B titles are deemed "unworthy" and thus "deserve" to be pirated. This line of thinking has granted me absolution whenever I had my doubts about torrenting games. However, this is also why it is the medium-sized titles that can often be considered the true victims of piracy. After all, the bigger titles supported by the hype machine are best equipped to convince pirates to pay while the smallest games are simply overlooked. Being stuck in the middle of this equation is a real problem for games like the Witness.

That bring us to the biggest fallacy of them all, the corporate boycott narrative. Many pirates are filled with pride whenever they mention their supposed civil disobedience against the likes of Ubisoft or EA. The notion that installing a Bittorrent client and downloading a game is a brave political stance is sadder than the laziest form of Twitter activism. What these pseudo-activists fail to grasp is that whenever EA records a loss, regular employees are usually the people suffering the consequences. Your righteous boycott of a Ubisoft game will change nothing in the lives of the board members i.e. the corporate monsters that you actually hate. And the funniest thing is that most pirates know that. It's just that a righteous excuse is a very sexy way of disguising the fact that not paying for games is just very convenient.

So, how do we convince people to stop pirating? Instead of promoting legitimate purchases as the moral high ground, I have my own reasonable anti-piracy pitch. Approximately half of the pirated games I deleted in the last 12 months were never actually installed, I just liked the idea of having them. This is because piracy has a tendency to devolve into hoarding. When you start using torrent sites, you quickly come to a realization that you can download any game in the world for free. This is a very cool feeling that becomes a power trip for many people. However, having all this power at your fingertips often leads to downloading games for the sake of downloading. And whether this is something you can relate to or not, you will probably agree with me that all piracy diminishes our appreciation for games. Personally, this was the decisive factor in my move towards legitimacy. Games have developed to be a wonderful art form that deserves to be cherished. Having to be selective about which games to buy will make you a smarter consumer. But most of all, buying games on Steam or GoG sales will incentivise publishers to provide us with even more discounts.

Piracy is still a problem because it remains a very convenient option for many people. And that is the crucial element in understanding and counteracting the phenomenon. I strongly believe that the Gabe Newell "better service" mantra is the way to go when it comes to ending piracy. Every time Valve introduces a new feature to Steam, a group of pirates lose an excuse. Every time GoG opens up their platform even more, the pseudo-activists lose yet another pseudo-righteous argument. Every time a developer continues to improve their games post-launch, piracy loses some of its inherent convenience. Despite our best efforts to conceal it, human beings remain genetically programmed to be selfish. Pirates will continue making excuses for their behavior as long as it makes sense for them to pirate games. To win this battle, we  simply have to make piracy the irrational choice. As long as we continue walking the path towards better service, while staying away from the likes of UWP, a piracy-free future seems to be a very attainable goal

Aiming for mediocrity in the gaming industry and how to move beyond it

There's something very wrong with the Division. And the worst thing is that I keep finding myself unable to put in words what it is. It took me 2 hours to fall asleep last night only because this bugged me so much. Because, you see, when one tries to deconstruct the Division almost all of the individual elements seem to be fairly good. The gameplay loop engages you with neat shooting mechanics. The quests take you to these wonderfully atmospheric location that rally evoke all the right feelings in the player. All the systems available at launch seem to have a good level of depth and will certainly take a good long while to master. Finally, the game is hyperaware that it is a MMO Lite experience and, unlike Destiny in 2014, it actively encourages player interaction. Yet, I finished my first day with the Division feeling indifferent, uninspired and ,above all, unfulfilled.

Despite all of these elements being really fine-tuned, in the first 5 hours of gameplay none of it really come together in a cohesive way. There are two ways of looking at why that is. The first school of critique will focuses their efforts around pointing out the lack of depth in particular systems. I've already seen vocal critique of the shooting, the loot system or the ridiculously unrealistic enemy health bars. And all of the above are legitimate concerns that take away from people's enjoyment of the game. However, none of these perceived problem are cardinal offences that disqualify the game from being a good experience. After all, Borderlands 2 struggled with everything on that list and still managed to be a memorable experience for most players. In my opinion, what will ultimately deem the Division to be completely unremarkable game that will soon be forgotten is the underlying corporate fear of failure.

Let's go back to 2014 for a second. Ubisoft came into the year with high expectations for the new generation of consoles. The company worked tirelessly to generate as much hype as possible for Watch Dogs and Assassin Creed Unity. Both games were presented as revolutionary products poised to take full advantage of the wonderful new hardware. We all know how this story ends. Despite respectable sales numbers the disappointment of the 2 games having a wide rang of issues resulted in a PR disaster that prompted Ubisoft to be viewed on par with the great gaming evildoers of the day,  EA and Activision. The Ubisoft boardroom was clearly shaken up by the community backlash. Measures were undoubtedly taken to do everything in their power to avoid scandals of this magnitude in the future. As much as it is good that Ubisoft put an emphasis on quality control, the fear of failure seems to permeate from every major game development decision made by the French giant.

The most compelling games in my book are the titles that early in development are able to clearly identify what makes their product unique and geared every element of the game to be informed by that dominant attribute. My favourite AAA game of all time, the Witcher 3, is a great example of that. CD Projekt RED knew that, while the game was full of great ideas, it was the narrative that made it truly stand out. In the world of the Witcher you are constantly reminded that, while you can certainly engage in a myriad of your typical open-worldy activities, getting to know the game universe and the characters is what you're there for. Now think about your favourite game, book or a movie. If I told you to give me one defining characteristic of your favourite work of art you wouldn't hesitate for a second. Greatness, especially in video games, is not something you simply stumble upon. It is often the result of applying great execution to a ground-breaking idea.

The dominant direction for all of the recent Ubisoft games seems to be making sure that the end product is solid above all else. Where great games try to innovate, Ubisoft games try to avoid blunders at all cost. And while this  means better technical quality, unfortunately it also breeds mediocrity. And while I got a similar impression from playing AC Syndicate and Far Cry Primal, the Division is where this aiming for mediocrity is at its worst. There's not a single element of the game that could be considered bold or contentious. Everything seems to be designed around a check list of what makes a solid game. The Division is a game that knows full well it is a 6. It is unapologetically proud of its mediocrity. It wants you to like it, but it knows you won't be in love with it. I seriously cannot find a single system in it that is not borrowed from something else. And that fact alone may not be outrage-inducing, but it is disappointing in this subtle yet painful way.

The more cynical among you will say that this is nothing new in AAA gaming and if I want innovation I should only play indie titles. There are  many reasons why I'm vehemently against this notion. Ubisoft is the company with a rather good record in game innovation. Assassin's Creed 2 is still the pinnacle of open-world action games. Far Cry 3 introduced a ton of systems that define today's implementation of RPG elements in FPS games. Even the controversial Watch Dogs had some great puzzle mechanics within the city hacking system. Ubisoft is more than capable of delivering innovation and I genuinely hope that the move towards risk-mitigation is just temporary and that projects like the next Assassin Creed game will do something to help me rediscover my love for their titles. 

Even if we assume that all strategic decisions at Ubisoft are dictated by greed, being a bit more daring might actually be the safer choice. Let me remind you that we live in a post-Deadpool world where the weird underdog superhero movie completely crushed the by-the-numbers Gods of Egypt. The Merc with a Mouth showed us that not all successful entertainment products have to appeal to everyone. Fervent support of a smaller group of people is often a lot more meaningful than the basic for of approval from a much larger community. I am more than certain that Rainbow Six Siege, a truly innovative gem in many respects, ends up making more money than the Division ever will. Why? Because in the consumer market, 1 passionate evangelist of your product is worth much more than 5 marketing experts.

The Division fails because it is obsessively making sure it is not a failure, and that's a shame. I hope there are people at Ubisoft realizing this now. Because, as much as it is bland and average, it can still be salvaged. I can easily imagine re-imagining in the form of a big expansion. It would really be a shame for this incredible vision of New York City to go to waste. On the other hand, the realization that there is something wrong with the game may never come. The game is what it is because the data proves that people will pay good money for games with these particular elements. Gamers punish developers for releasing bad, broken games. However, I actually think it might be time to demand more than a solid product. So whenever you a flashy trailer entices you to buy a mediocre game, remind yourself that there are probably 100 better ways to spend your gaming budget. That way, we might actually end up helping Ubisoft and others excel in the long run.     

The pitfalls of VR and why liability is Oculus' biggest problem

In a bit more than 3 weeks Oculus Rift will usher in what is widely considered a new era in gaming, the virtual reality age. 2016 has already been dubbed "the year of VR" and pretty much everyone agrees that the technology is somewhat of a quantum leap for the industry. There obviously are negative voices but the vast majority of the naysayers seem to focus their critique around the relatively high price point or the formidable hardware requirements that will bar the majority of customers from enjoying VR as intended.  While these concerns are sound, I can't help but think that we are missing a killer issue that is looming over the future of VR.

Before delving into my concerns let me establish my personal stance on VR. Firstly, as a disabled game I couldn't possibly be more excited for VR. I am particularly moved by the very notion of expanding people's access to experiences they couldn't possibly have in the physical realm. In my opinion, when we talk about the potential of VR we are almost always tentative in our prediction. In my mind, the evolution of the technology can have life-changing impact on great many people with  physical limitation. In my version of the virtual future, heavily paralyzed individuals are given a VR work space, where they can be as productive as anyone else. I imagine a lot of disabled and elderly people reinventing themselves thanks to VR. The entertainment aspect is really exciting as a goal for the first few years of adoption. The final frontier goes beyond anything that is being discussed at the moment.

Mundane issues like the considerable price point is really not a huge problem for technologies supported by such corporations as Facebook  or Valve. In the boardrooms of the world everyone seems to be fully aware that VR is a long-term play that will not be properly monetized for at least 3 years. All the talk about Oculus being dead in the water is nothing more than the usual consumer dissatisfaction with the prices of ground-breaking technology. My main concern can be summarized in a single word: liability.Yes, Virtual Reality will probably be the next chapter in the "games are evil" debate. What is truly mind-boggling is the fact that we aren't talking about it at all.

Let us begin with setting up clear parameters for my deliberations. We can assume that most VR users will be using the headsets in moderation. I keep coming across 2 hours as the cited limit for a VR session. Eye strain and simulation sickness will limit people yo using VR as a novelty experience on top of their usual gaming habits. This will especially be true in the early days when most devs will still be learning how to design around these issues. However, we all know that there will be another group of VR users. The true VR evangelists are already planning to organize the majority of their gaming life around Oculus or Vive. Ironically, it is this group that may put the entire virtual revolution in jeopardy, or at least slow it down in a very considerable fashion.

It is generally very hard to find solid empirical data on prolonged VR use, especially if you are not blessed with a JStor account. What I managed to find is a study from 1999 that studied the effects of the early VR head-mounted displays(HMD). According to Collins 1999, prolonged exposure to HMDs seems to rewire our brains in a distinct way and may cause "LSD-like" flashbacks in adults. We have to also remember that HMDs from the study were much less effective in terms of player immersion than the modern VR headsets. The study is inconclusive in saying whether the effects are in any way permanent. It may well be a small annoyance, but at the same time it casts a shadow on the entire hype.

Another problematic consideration is the fact that VR headsets are designed to provide a degree of sensory deprivation. In order to immerse us in the virtual world, the technology cuts off our access to the usual sources of sensory experiences. Here we have to return to the world of academia. Daniel et. al 2014 contend that even short-term sensory deprivation puts subjects at risk of "psychotic-like" experiences. Again, you can argue that VR headsets don't use sensory deprivation but a form of sensory simulation. However, we simply don't have the long-term usage data to dispel these concerns.

And here lies the core problem that the VR industry will have to face. Obviously, the problem I described will never be widespread and most people will adapt to VR the same we adapt we to any other form of technology. However, the PR aspect of potential psychological damage might be disastrous. It may well take just a few bad apples for the entire house to come crashing down. Imagine several christian kids in the US developing psychiatric symptoms that coincide with the introduction of VR. The correlation could just be spurious, but looking at the recent anti-vaccine debacle I'm really afraid that VR may be the next frontier in the (un)holy crusade against video games. Let us remember that ,for example, the spurious connection between schizophrenia and cannabis use is still used as the main argument against the drug in many countries. Pseudo-scientific myths tend to take on a life of their own and I'm really concerned that "VR makes you crazy" may well be another pseudo-scientific slogan  to dominate the political and legal discourse.

Let me finish this piece by playing devil's advocate for a while. In the 1920s, when cars were being introduced to Western societies, there was a wave of backlash and widespread protests against automobiles (Grescoe 2012). Ultimately. the protests have become but a funny anecdote from the past. Cars are as universal now as bread was to the people of the 1920s. My sincere hope is that virtual reality will also prove too beneficial a technology to disregard because of a doubtful health concern. Also, it is important to point out that some manufacturers are already addressing the problem. The outward-facing camera that the Vive is equipped with may well be the answer to most deprivation-induced problems. I really hope that the manufacturers are prepared for addressing the health concerns. However, it would really be unwise to just assume everyone has the PR aspect under full control. After all, we are talking about the industry that gave rise to the PR genius of EA or Ubisoft....

Social trends in gaming might explain Trump's rise better than any mainstream pundit

Stay with me for a moment. Yes, I think the great success of the Donald can be explained through the lens of video games and I'm being serious. Yesterday, on the so-called Super Tuesday, the world of politics saw Donald Trump practically clinch his Republican nomination. Don't get me wrong, at this pointno one is really shocked by how things are turning out. However, the ease with which Mr. Trump is crushing even the wildest predictions is baffling to say the least. Pundits are trying to outperform each other in providing increasingly ridiculous explanations for particular victories. And while my theory is simply a cog in a very complex political mechanism, it provides insight I haven't even heard mentioned in the media. In short, I believe that Donald Trump will be the next US President and gamers will contribute to his victory.

Historically, gaming has been at least in part associated with progressive thinking and liberal values. In part this is a logical consequence of assuming that gaming is the domain of the young. Social groups such as university students  are stereotypically seen as very liberal. The same group, namely male university goers, happen to be the target group for many AAA gaming companies. And this conjecture is what lies at the heart of the liberal myth about gaming. As with many other things in life, correlation doesn't equal causation. Yes, students are still more likely to be liberal than conservative. Yes, students remain a somewhat significant demographic for gaming in the West. However, the gaming community at large is much more diversified politically than most people assume. Not only that, looking at the world of gaming shows just how incorrect the spin doctors are in their outdated assumptions about the youth in countries like the US.

Let me be clear, I'm not here to judge anyone. I have my very progressive beliefs, I'm proud to call myself a feminist, and I'm generally disappointed in how many people are susceptible to the allure of modern demagoguery. This article is about something else. It is a rebuttal to a misconception I have heard in the American media almost every day.   How many times have we been told: "No one could have ever anticipated Trump's rise to prominence"? When the media try to explain the popularity of Mr. Trump, almost every interpretation can be boiled down to: "people are afraid and he's pandering to this xenophobia".  Every time I hear this incredibly simplistic line of thought, I get incredibly frustrated. As a gamer I have been witnessing complete escalation of discourse similar to Trump's rhetoric for at least the last 5 years.

The world of gaming has been embroiled in what is effectively a cultural war. With the popularisation of gaming, some mainstream developers took measures to cater the needs of minority customers. Furthermore, certain advocacy groups started to criticize some of the more popular gaming franchises for excluding minority groups or completely ignoring certain themes. This in turn led to the creation of a counter-culture that has argued for the preservation of the old ways of game development, complete depoliticization of video games and better ethics in game journalism. Whichever side you're on in this conflict, you know full well that it has caused a huge divide in the world of gaming. It's been almost 2 years since the peak of this widespread debate and many communities are still divided along these political lines.

In my opinion ,this is where Trump's political appeal has been grossly underestimated. Trump is the essence of a similar counter-culture that was created in response to the progressive tone of Obama's presidency. All of Trump's principle are geared towards being the antidote to the social changes achieved under Obama. The billionaire is an embodiment of the doubts a large portion of Americans have about the move towards minority politics and social justice. This sentiment in its core is eerily similar to the gaming counter culture we talked about. Uncertainty about social change is nothing new and we as gamers were dealing with it years before Trump was even a thing.

This is why I'm pretty sure Trump will be the next US President. Liberals arrogantly assume that the millennials will show overwhelming support for Hillary. Polling numbers that show Hillary to be in the lead are likely to be  skewed. Voting for Trump is somewhat of a shameful act in many liberal families in the US. When push comes to shove, however, a large portion of this "traditional" Democrat demographic might quietly support Donald Trump. And all that's left to us liberal gamers is a grim satisfaction in seeing the Trump presidency long before anyone else even dreamed of it.

P.S.: I'm not an American citizen and  I don't even live in the US. However, my stake in the elections is almost as big as anyone else's. We live in a globalized world and the ramifications of a Trump presidency are likely to affect me in the same way you will be affected.